Don't Ask, Don't Offer
by Lyse's Pieces
Summary: To me, it was a game. To Tony, there was nothing better than to watch the kids’ faces when he told them, “Sorry kid, you just ain’t what we’re looking for.” The kids he tested would leave crying, always. [For Blink Week!]
1. I

**Disclaimer:** I own no part of _Newsies_.

**A/N:** Kid Blink's point of view; no slash, rated for language and some disturbing scenes.

**Special A/N:** Happy birthday, B!

* * *

_Nobody joined our club. We sometimes offered and people sometimes asked, but nobody was ever allowed in. Our club was our thing, our one thing, and it wasn't meant for anybody else._

Tony Higgins and I used to have this thing. We had this club, just between the two of us. We had passwords and top-secret meetings in my dead grandfather's bedroom. I loved the room because it reminded me of my grandfather who had died of a heart attack when I was eight years old: rumpled sheets and slight aroma of cigar smoke and starch. Tony loved the room because of all of my grandfather's treasures still tucked away in his drawers. We both used to love to dig through Granddad's old things, fingering his pens and the buttons on his coats; tasting his left-behind cigars and experimenting with his matchbook.

The thing we loved the best, though, was my grandfather's pocket watch. He'd owned this beautiful old pocket watch: burnished gold with a crisp white face and a braided chain, and left it to me right before he died. He'd said, "Louis, I want you to have this and always remember me, okay? And be proud of yourself. A boy with a pocket watch is a boy with pride." Tony and I used to take turns slipping it through the button holes in our vests and tucking the watch safely inside our pockets, listening for the sharp, measured tick. I always felt so grown-up; the way I imagined my grandfather felt whenever he plucked it from his own pocket. But for Tony, I think it made him feel like one of those wealthy gentlemen with enough rich family history to have an heirloom. For me, the watch meant maturity. For Tony, the watch meant power.

There was a time when I was thirteen and Tony was fifteen, when we sat in my grandfather's room one evening after supper. I was perched uncomfortably on the foot of my grandfather's bed, working to maintain my grasp on a wriggling bundle in my hands. Tony was lounging in the chair at my grandfather's desk, his fingers folded in a thoughtful steeple. In the middle of the room stood a small, eerily-skinny boy with bones poking his pale skin at frightening angles. The boy couldn't have been older than ten, and had a scraggly pile of blond hair and a scrunched face that reminded me powerfully of a rat. _Rat Boy,_ I decided to call him. He stood trembling before Tony; making me think of a sinner standing at Judgment.

"Now," Tony announced, tapping the end of my grandfather's pen against the desk like a gavel and causing Rat Boy to jump, "this meeting of the Tony-Louis Manhattan Project will now come to order. Vice president Ballatt," he addressed me, "what are the notes of the last meeting?" He spoke officially, as if he were calling the senate to order.

"Um," I squeezed the bundle, wincing as a sharp claw tore at my knuckle, "You said that-"

Tony cleared his throat, "For clarity, by 'you', you are referring to me, President Higgins, is that correct?"

"Yeah," I groaned, embarrassed by Rat Boy's giggling, "_President Higgins_ made _note_ that we had a new member interested in joining the club."

"By club," Tony interrupted again, a condescending smile stretching his olive-toned face, "You mean the Tony-Louis Manhattan Project, correct?"

"Yeah," I repeated, irritated at Rat Boy's smirk.

"Now," Tony turned his attention to the boy standing in the middle of the room, "you came to me last week expressing an interest in joining this club. Is that correct?"

"Yes," the boy managed.

Tony pushed his tongue into his cheek, scrutinizing the trembling boy, "Yeah, I think we'll let ya join."

Rat Boy's face broke into a grin as he trembled harder.

"But," Tony continued, "we're gonna have to give ya a series of tests." He studied the boy closer and said carefully, "How brave are you?"

"Um," Rat Boy bit his lip, "pretty brave."

"Only pretty, huh? Listen kid, our club is really something special. You can't just tell us that you're brave; we gotta see it. That's fair, right? So we got this test you gotta pass. You pass the test, you're in the club, no questions asked. Deal?"

The small boy nodded vigorously.

"Good. All right, here's how it's gonna work," Tony drew a paring knife from his pocket, and I instantly recognized the dull blade and worn handle as my mother's knife. "You're gonna use this," he held the knife up and turned it, letting the single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling glint off of the blade, "with something Louis has got over there. Louis, show the boy what you got."

I swallowed hard as I unwrapped the small, gray rat from the dishtowel. I held it up by it tail, watching it wriggle and its eyes dilate with even more fear and irritation. I gently stroked its dirt-matted head. The rat turned and viciously sank its yellow teeth into my finger, causing me to jerk away. I reached down and whacked the rat's head against the wooden floor, and then lifted it by its tail again. It was thrashing even harder now.

"Now," a smile played at the corners of Tony's mouth, "I'm gonna give you the knife and Louis is gonna give you the rat. When I tell you to, I want you to hold the rat down with your left hand, and cut its tail off with your right."

"Is that all?" Rat Boy asked, feigning confidence.

"I said, no questions asked," Tony replied tightly, handing the boy the knife blade-first. "Now, go ask Louis for the rat."

As I nursed my bleeding finger with my mouth, Rat Boy turned to me and held out his hand.

"Dammit, boy, are you deaf?" Tony shook his head and groaned, "I said _ask_ Louis for the rat, not demand it like _you're_ the goddamn president or something."

I could see the boy flinch at Tony's stern voice. "Can I please have the rat?" he squeaked, refusing to meet my eyes.

I willingly handed the rat over and wrapped my finger in my shirt tail, praying to God that the rat wasn't infected.

Rat Boy set the protesting rat down on the desk, visibly shaking. He held the rat in the middle of its back with his left hand and raised the paring knife high with his right. He turned and looked expectantly at Tony.

Tony paused a moment, taking in the scene of the knife and the squirming rat. Finally, he uttered a calm, "Now."

The boy brought the dull blade down as hard as he could at the base of the rat's tail, and it let out the most horrendous, ear-splitting scream I'd ever heard. Its mouth opened wide, revealing its yellowed, broken teeth and its eyes rolled wildly in its head. It screeched and clawed at the wooden desk, its tail half-off and blood beginning to drip from the open wound. Rat Boy wedged his tongue between his lips and brought the knife down again, sawing at the delicate pink skin of the animal's tail.

The gray rat shrieked louder as the dull blade cut through the rest of its tail. I watched as its body shook with fear and pain, feeling disgusted and helpless. Finally, the boy threw the knife down on the desk and released the squealing rat, and I watched it scamper off of the desk and land on the wooden floor with a _thump_. It was still for a moment, dazed, until it gathered its small feet under it and darted under the bed.

Tony reached out and plucked the limp, pink tail with two finger tips. Whereas my face was a portrait of horror and nausea, his was completely blank. He said evenly, "Good job," before holding the tail out to the boy. "Here, take it. It's yours now."

The boy continued trembling, this time almost intoxicated with self-achievement. "Does this mean I'm in the club?" he asked with excitement.

"Not quite," Tony shook his head, slightly amused. "I want you to do one more thing."

"Anything," the boy breathed enthusiastically.

"I want you to eat that rat's tail."

I felt my insides drop with Rat Boy's excitement. He stuttered, "W-what?"

"Eat it," Tony shrugged, gently twisting in the chair, "put it in your mouth, chew, and swallow. Ain't hard."

The boy held the rat's tail up to his face, examining the delicate pink flesh and brushing of gray hair. Finally, he shook his head, "I don't think I can."

"Listen," Tony was suddenly on his feet, staring levelly at the boy, "You want to be a pansy son of a bitch, go ahead and get out of here. You want in the club, you'll listen to me."

Rat Boy swallowed hard, and I sat back in shock. "Tony," I protested, feeling something hot beginning to crawl up my throat, "don't do that."

"Shut-up, Louis," he snapped, his eyes trained on Rat Boy, "if he wants it bad enough, he'll do it."

"Eating a rat was never part of the offer," I stated, watching the blood drain from Rat Boy's face.

"If he didn't want the offer, he shouldn't have asked," Tony shrugged. His eyes bore onto the boy, "Do it. Now."

The boy frantically shoved the rat's tail into his mouth, his eyes stuck on Tony's face. His teeth gummed at the flesh and bone and I could see his body jerking and tears gathering in his dull eyes. Finally, he cut through his disgust and swallowed the tail, and I flinched myself as I imagined the hot, thick tail slithering down his throat.

A dark look of satisfaction swept across Tony's face as Rat Boy's face grew impossibly pale. His face contorted and he doubled over, coughing and choking.

I jumped off the bed and patted the boy on the back, "You okay? Come on, just swallow again. You're all right," I crooned to him, watching him gag and claw at his throat. Rat Boy looked at me and then fell to his knees, vomiting the rat's tail and a hot, brown liquid onto my late grandfather's wooden floor.

I gaped helplessly at Tony as Rat Boy continued to retch. I could see the rat's tail lying in the puddle of vomit, crumpled. Tony shook his head in disgust, "Pathetic."

"Let me go get you some rags," I stood up, gently patting the boy on the back. I almost felt nauseated myself as I listened to Rat Boy dry-heave. I felt horrible for him, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Tony was right: the boy _did_ look pathetic.

Tony reached out and grabbed my arm, "Nah, don't worry about it. He can clean it up. He's got a shirt. He can use that." He nodded to Rat Boy, "Clean it up. These are some nice floors."

I watched in horror as the boy did as he was told, wiping drool and vomit from his lips as he pulled his thin shirt over his head and laid it on the puddle, mopping it up.

"You're insane," I accused Tony in a low tone. My legs felt weak as I pushed my sweaty fingers through my hair, watching Rat Boy clean up his mess. "What the hell is your problem?"

"My problem?" He looked hurt, "I ain't got one. You want a pansy in your club, that's fine. If he's gonna go and throw up, then he can clean it."

"The club is just for fun," I said sharply, speaking over the crumpled form of Rat Boy, "it's not supposed to hurt anyone."

"Nobody's hurt," Tony said indifferently, "he'll be stronger because of it." He shot a fake smile down at Rat Boy.

I threw myself onto my grandfather's old bed, trying not to look at the other two boys. I wanted to throw up myself. I had always been attracted to Tony's charisma and strong will, but now I had never been more repulsed. Usually, it was me who made the big shows out of any situation, and Tony was the one who sat back and observed. Out of the two of us, I'm easily the most dramatic. _I'm_ the one who overreacts, and Tony's the one who keeps it together. This time, though, the extremity of the situation and our roles unnerved me.

A few minutes later, Rat Boy stood up with his arms full of his vomit-soaked shirt. He smiled weakly at Tony, "I'm done."

"Good," Tony smiled back, "you still got the rat tail?"

"Yep," he whispered, picking it out of the shirt and holding it, "am I in now?"

"Swallow it again and you'll be president."

Part of me wanted Rat Boy to throw his vomit-sodden shirt in Tony's face, and part of me wanted him to shove the goddamn rat's tail down Tony's throat. What he did, though, made me wonder if he had thrown up his brains. He hesitated for a moment, and stuck the tail in his mouth again, swallowing it. Finally, he choked out, "So I'm in, right?"

Tony let out a cynical, bark-like laugh, "Boy, you're just as good at swallowing rat tails as you are at swallowing bullshit. Sorry kid, you just ain't what we're looking for. Now get the hell out."

Maybe it was the tone of Tony's voice, or the dangerous fire in his eyes. The boy allowed himself to be pushed by Tony out the door, tears leaking down his pale face. Tony shoved him across the threshold and slammed the door, forever denying Rat Boy entry into the Tony-Louis Manhattan Project.

"What an asshole," Tony muttered.

Through the door and down the hall, I could once again hear retching.

I shut my eyes tightly and tried not to listen. Tony made a disgusted noise in his throat and sat down in chair again, tapping the desk with his fingernails. "Now, Vice President Ballatt, what's next on the agenda?"

I buried my face in my hands as I heard Rat Boy sobbing outside the door, undoubtedly wiping more spit and vomit from his mouth. I couldn't answer Tony.

"What's wrong with you, kid?" Tony asked me. He was always calling me "kid", and it gave me a cold kind of cold amusement. I was taller than he was, and probably a lot stronger, too. But, as he never failed to remind me, he was older than I was, and "a hell of a lot smarter", so I let him call me whatever he wanted. He was my only friend.

"Nothing," I mumbled, "I'm okay."

"Then quit acting like a goddamn pansy, okay? You're starting to remind me of my sister."

I looked up, "You have a sister?"

"Nah," he shook his head with a smile, "but if I did, you'd be acting like her."

Tony was always saying strange things like that, making up comparisons and other wild tales. I sighed and asked him, "Tony, why'd you do that? Why'd you have to go and do that?"

He just shrugged, "It was funny."

"I didn't see anything funny about it." I was starting to feel that nauseated feeling slosh in the pit of my stomach.

"That's because you're a pansy," Tony said defensively. "You've always been like that, Louis. When I met you, you were pretty quiet. Now, you just gotta go and make a big fucking deal out of everything. So some stupid kid ate a rat's tail, so what? You gonna go and make a big deal out of that?"

"You can't just go and do that to people," I said indignantly, trying to keep my face from flushing, "it's not fair."

"They're the ones wanting to join the club in the first place," Tony defended hotly, "if he didn't want to swallow it, then he could've left any time. And you," he says pointedly, "just sat there and let him swallow it. _You_ could've stopped him, too."

_That's not fair_, I wanted to say, but instead pursed my lips.

"And now you ain't even gonna say anything. That's like you too, Louis," Tony said smugly, "you're all ready to fight, and then when someone starts challenging you, you back down."

"That's not true," I retorted.

"It is true. Prove to me you ain't a pansy."

For a moment, I was hesitant about what to say. I was thirteen and still frightened of him. Tony was fifteen and arrogant. He sat back in his chair, satisfied. I watched him and felt my temper flare again, and this time I refused to look at Tony. Instead, I looked just over his head and remembered his forced smile when he commanded Rat Boy to clean his own vomit. Heat rose to my face and I could feel my courage gaining as I looked back down and studied Tony. For four years, he had been my best friend. He was the logic where I was the emotion; he was the final say where I was just the heated discussion. I idolized him and hated him at the same time. I sighed, my anger tumbling in my stomach, "Now my house is going to smell like throw-up."

"Well, yeah," he shrugged.

"And there's a rat in it!"

"Stop your whining," Tony snapped. "Least you have a house."

I wiped my anger-heated face with my hands and looked pointedly at Tony, "You didn't have to go and make him do that, especially since you knew that he wasn't gonna be able to join, anyway."

"He could have left whenever he felt like it."

"_You_ can leave whenever you feel like it," I pointed out bitterly.

"What, kid?"

I instantly regretted my words, "Nothing, Tony. Sorry."

"You want me to leave?"

"No," I said quickly.

"Because I can if you want me to. I mean, if you've got _another friend_ you want to spend time with, that's okay, too."

"No, I don't," and that was God's honest truth.

"Then how about some respect, huh?"

"Sorry," I repeated in a quieter tone.

"You're so soft. Next you're gonna be petting kitties and picking flowers I'll bet," Tony snorted. "When are you ever gonna toughen up?"

"I'm tough," I said, even though I knew that I actually did like cats and flowers.

Tony snorted as he fingered the paring knife Rat Boy had left on the desk. He held it close to his face, inspecting the drying blood on the dull blade. He tossed it to me, "Show me you're tough," he challenged.

I flinched as the knife landed in my lap, "How?"

"I don't know," he sighed irritably, "cut something. Find that rat and cut something else off of it."

I nervously pocketed the knife, making a mental note to return it to my mother's kitchen drawers, "I don't feel like it."

"Bullshit, then. You're about as tough as I am rich," he snatched my grandfather's pocket watch off of the desk and examining it, "tell me why you got this again."

"My grandfather wanted me to have it," I said, thrown off by the sudden change of subject.

"He said that he wanted you to be proud. You really proud of yourself, with all the pitying and scene-making you do?"

"Yes?" I said uncertainly.

"Okay, then," Tony shrugged, sounding as uncertain as I had. "But maybe pride ain't the healthiest thing."

I thought it was ironic that _he_ was telling me about pride, but I didn't interrupt him.

"'Specially for someone like you. You're cut out to be humble, kid. Pansies and girls are cut out to be humble. Really, I don't know if your grandfather would be all that proud of you. Maybe 'ashamed' would be a better word."

"Maybe it's time for you to go," I said hotly, swallowing hard to push my emotions back down.

"Yeah, okay. Think about what I said, all right?"

"Get the hell out of here," I said quietly, his words stinging.

Tony coolly walked towards the bedroom door and said, "Fine. See ya around, _kid_."


	2. II

Each night since I was nine, Tony would eat dinner with us and then we'd go into my grandfather's bedroom and hold our secret meetings. I didn't know why we had to have a _club_, and why we couldn't just be friends, but I liked it. I was never at school enough to make friends and I was too shy to talk to the other boys on the street, so Tony was my only companion, and for him to let me into something was special. I was part of something of something nobody else was, and Tony even let me be _vice president_, which was really something. He'd address me as "Vice President Ballatt", which gave me the same intoxication of maturity that I felt and the tingle of power Tony felt whenever we held my grandfather's pocket watch.

I was sure that Tony was so familiar with feeling mature that he was almost sick of it. I was nine when we started the club and discovered the pocket watch. I was still living with my mother and father, and I went to school whenever my mother felt well enough to care for the house and my little sister by herself. Tony was two years older and five years wiser than I was. He lived in what he called a "lodging house", and he sold newspapers every day for money. I got the biggest kick out of that. Tony got to live on his own, make his own money and never go to school- to me, it was everything I dreamed about. He would come and eat dinner with us every evening, and I'd secretly compare his rough, ink-stained hands to my own soft, clean ones, thinking how free he was, and how confined I was; he was so grown up and I was so terribly sheltered.

Tony was a rough, cocky kid. I was shy around new people, but instantly attracted by his cool wit and head-strong personality. He was a charming gentleman to my mother and the street-tough son my father wanted out of me. He was everything that I wanted to be, and as a kid, I idolized him. As I grew older, I began to realize his character. And his character was not one of his strong points.

Our club had two rules: Keep it professional, which meant that we had to address each other by our titles and keep tabs on the meetings, and the second rule was that nobody else was allowed to join. This was my favorite rule, because Tony had picked _me_ to be the only member. I didn't understand _why_ Tony didn't want his club to grow, but he just told me that, "You get too many people, they get together and start thinking; thinking that _they_ wanna be leaders. And we can't have that, Louis." I still didn't understand, but I just nodded.

We never told anyone that they weren't allowed to join. On the contrary, we _encouraged_ people to try to join. We'd swing my grandfather's pocket watch around and strategically pull it out to check the time, letting the sun reflect off of its metal casing. We'd tell the boys, "Join our club, and we'll _give_ ya a pocket watch." So we had lots of boys try to join. Tony insisted that they come to our meetings, and we'd give them a test. We'd tell them the test's rules, and afterwards, regardless of their performance, we'd say, "Sorry, kid, your membership has been _denied_. Please leave the building." I loved saying that; I felt so mature, so official. We'd snicker as the poor kid would walk away sniffling.

Sometimes I'd give the "potential members" the test, and sometimes Tony would. I always thought of their tests as a joke, and I never made them do anything too bad. Sometimes I'd make them swallow dirt, sometimes I'd ask them to lick the baseboards in the bedroom, stuff like that. Tony, though… Tony _loved_ the power he had over the poor kids. He used to say, "Come on, Louis, we can make these poor bastards do anything we want them to. Have some fun." He loved coming up with strange and unusual tests; tests I'd never dream of assigning. The kids he tested would leave crying, always.

Every single time we told the kids that they couldn't join our club, I'd feel a little guilty, like pebbles were sinking into my stomach, and I'd try to be nice about it. But for Tony, there was nothing better than to watch the kids' expressions shatter when he said, "Sorry kid, you just ain't what we're looking for."

* * *

A week later, I sat on the steps leading up to my apartment building, miserably clicking my fingernails. Tony hadn't shown up for dinner for the past week, and we hadn't had any meetings. I hadn't even _seen_ him and I couldn't remember the last time I was so lonely. I was afraid that Tony would never stop by again and I'd be alone for forever. I stood up and brushed the dust from my pants, running my hands over a peculiar lump in my pocket. I realized that still had the paring knife from the week before, and even though I knew that I should return it to my mother, its presence in my pocket made me feel strong, even tough, as if Tony would be proud that I still had a knife in my pocket. I sighed and prepared to go inside and go to sleep, even if it was early in the evening.

"Hey, kid!"

I heard Tony's voice and spun around. He was walking towards me, carrying a burlap sack, a ball of twine and a small metal flask. I smiled and felt all of my resentment towards him shed away. "Tony, what are you gonna do with all that stuff?"

"It's another test," he said, dragging a burlap sack behind him.

"Who's joining?" I smiled, taking the twine from his hand.

"You," He told me simply, shoving the ball of twine and metal flask into my hands. He grabbed my arm and dragged me to the alley behind my apartment building.

"What?" I asked, shocked. I watched as Tony whistled through his teeth, calling an alley cat toward us.

"I was thinking the other night that you're becoming a little soft, kid," he squatted down and patted the gray cat, a grin spreading across his face, "I was a little thrown off by your reaction to that rat tail thing."

"It was pretty fucking bad if you ask me," I exclaimed, dizzy from Tony's few words. _He was testing me. That meant that I was suddenly out of the club. Nobody ever passed the tests._

"That's what I'm talking about," Tony straightened, and I immediately felt dread pool in my stomach. He tapped the cap on the flask with his fingernail, "You were pretty shaken by that, and I was starting to wonder if this club was really right for you."

"I'm the only member!" Panic was rising rapidly in my throat. Tony was my only friend. The club was the only thing I had, and it was being ripped through my hands like a rope in a game of Tug-of-War. "You can't kick me out; you won't have a club then."

Tony leaned down again and gently rubbed the cat's head, cooing to it as it meowed in irritation, "I ain't saying we're gonna kick you out. I'm saying I want you to prove that you belong. Just a quick test."

"I'm not swallowing any rats," I said flatly, gripping the flask.

"No, no. Here," he picked the burlap up off of the ground, "See this sack?"

"Yeah," I tried not to moan.

"See that flask?"

"Yeah. What's in it?"

Tony grinned with only one corner of his mouth, making the skin on my arms tingle unpleasantly. "Alcohol," he said.

"Okay," I shrugged. I wasn't following his words.

"And finally, you see this cat here?" He smiled affectionately at the alley cat, "All I want you to do is put the cat in the bag."

I thought that I was going to throw up from all of the dread. The test sounded easy enough: wrestle the kitty into the bag. But Tony's tests were never as they seemed. I stared at him.

Tony returned my stare with his piercing eyes and said with a cool sternness, "Well, get to it."

I looked down at the cat that was beginning to nibble at the toe of Tony's shoe, "What's the alcohol for?"

"You'll see," he snapped.

"What if it bites me?" I asked.

He emitted a frustrated groan, "See, Louis? This is _exactly_ what I'm talking about. You're so soft it's embarrassing. Stop being a pansy and get the cat in the bag- it ain't gonna bite you."

Tony's sudden loss of patience frightened me into following his orders. I kneeled down in front of the cat and tentatively reached a finger out to stroke its nose. The cat hissed angrily, and I tore my hand away.

"Jesus H. Christ," Tony declared, deftly grabbing the cat by the scruff of its neck. "It's not like I'm asking you to cut its face off or something," he spat. "Pick the goddamned thing up and throw it in the bag. Can you do that?"

"Yeah," I muttered, my fear burning my throat.

He opened the burlap sack and aggressively threw the cat into it. It let out a yelp of protest before Tony shut the back with his hands and held it out to me.

Numbly, I closed my fingers around the bag. The cat thrashed around irately, and it took more muscle than I had anticipated just holding it.

"Take the twine," Tony ordered, "and tie the bag closed."

"Are we going to throw it in the river or something?" I asked, my panic clouding my mind.

"No," Tony chuckled, "we ain't throwing it in the river." He watched me wind the twine around the bag, tying it shut. "Now," he crooned, his anger vanished, "knot it three times; make sure it's tight."

I did as I was told. When I finished, I asked, "Can it breathe?"

"It won't matter in a minute," he smiled. "Now, set the bag down- there's a good boy. Take the flask and dump it on the cat."

"What?"

"Pour it on the goddamned cat," he hissed.

"Where'd you get this, anyway?"

"I said, no questions asked," he replied tightly, sounding exactly as he had when he had been talking to Rat Boy.

My hand was shaking so badly I could hardly open the flask, let alone aim it over the wriggling bag. The cat howled as I emptied the flask over it, clawing at its rough burlap confinement. I felt bad. Were we scaring the cat? Was that it? The strong stench from the alcohol mingled with the grime of the alley cat brought tears to my eyes. I set the flask on the ground and looked anxiously at Tony, "Now what?"

He had once again calmed down as he reached into his pocket and plucked a matchbook from his pocket. I stiffened as he handed one match to me. "Now," he said, "strike a match."

"What?"

He remained calm and kept smiling, "Just strike a match. You know how to."

Suddenly, the pieces of Tony's plan flew together in my mind, and I knew exactly why he wanted me to light the match. I dropped the match and took a nervous step back. "I don't think I can."

Tony rolled his eyes, "You want to be a pansy son of a bitch, go ahead and get out of here. You want to stay in the club, you'll listen to me."

I instantly recognized the words he used at every single testing, and I understood why all of our "potential members" trembled so badly. I had never realized it before, but Tony, standing three inches shorter, was the most terrifying figure I'd ever seen. Looking into his eyes was like looking into two windows of hell, and I shivered in the warm air, flinching at the cat's protesting yells. I felt as if I was being tugged in two directions: I couldn't imagine lighting the match, and I couldn't imagine going through any more days without Tony or our club. It was too lonely. I said weakly, "I want to stay in the club."

"Light it," he said simply.

I grabbed the match from the ground and took the box from Tony's hand, striking the match and igniting a small, flickering flame.

"Throw it and jump away," Tony said, excitement lighting his voice.

The back of my eyes began to sting as they darted between the cat and the match. The flame quickly ate away at the matchstick, and I helplessly looked at Tony, "Come on, Tony. Let's go inside."

"No," he said, his eyes trained on the cat, "just throw the matchstick. You know you have to. Who's going to be friends with a goddamn pansy anyway?"

I started crying harder as Tony's words struck me like so many daggers into a window, shattering me. I threw the lighted match onto the wet burlap sack and leapt away, blinded by my hot tears. The small, dancing flame leapt into an angry fire; the cat emitted a terrible, horrifying shriek, making the rat's yelp when we cut its tail off seem like a child's giggle. The cat thrashed harder inside of the bag, screaming as the flame licked at the alcohol and ate away the bag; biting at the cat's flesh. I thought I was going to collapse.

Tony's face twitched in amusement as he watched the burning cat. He turned to me and patted me roughly on my shoulder, "Good job, kid. Didn't think you had it in you."

I wiped my eyes and watched the cat, guilt searing my insides. I thought the cat's frantic cries were going to burst my ears, and I imagined that I could feel the flames engulfing me. Without thinking, I dove for the burning bag.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Tony yelled at me, stepping even further away. I yelped as I closed my hands around the flames, feeling as if the fire was melting away my fleshy palms. It leapt up onto my sleeve cuffs, igniting small flames up and down my shirt. The first layer of flesh instantly gave way to the fire, blistering and peeling off. I fumbled numbly for the twine that tied off the bag, unable to sense anything but the cat's screams.

I couldn't work my fingers into the knot, so I reached a dripping hand into my pocket, whipping out the paring knife Rat Boy had used on the rat's tail. Tears streamed down my face and I heard a two-toned scream: one high and frantic, and the other lower, in excruciating pain. At the time, I didn't realize that the second voice belonged to me. I jammed the blade under the twine, sawing it with every ounce of strength I had and rolling the cat back and forth over the pavement, trying to smother the flames. After what seemed like hours, the dull blade broke through the twine, freeing the burning cat. The animal hysterically leapt out of the bag and shoved me back, and I could feel the back of my skull slam against the pavement, sending waves of aching vibration throughout my body. The cat's front paws landed on my face. Its left paw sank its claws into my right cheek, but its right claws dug into my left eye, pinning my eyelid shut. I beat my palms against my pants to smother the flames melting my skin and then tried to use them to wrestle the cat off of my chest. The cat ripped its paw from my eye, feeling as if it had left searing trails of fire on my eyelid and throughout my eye. Hot, intense pain radiated from my torn eye; something hot leaked down my face. I let the cat go and clutched my face with my burned hands, the blood from my face meeting the raw flesh and forming an insanely painful sting. Tears rushed from my un-touched right eye and panicked sobs piled in my throat. White-hot pain throbbed in my left eye so badly I couldn't breathe, and my tear-fogged right eye began to rapidly blot out and fade, until the last thing I could feel was the gummy, burned flesh pressed against my torn eye.


	3. III

When I woke up, I was still lying on the cold pavement. Night had fallen and the streetlamps cast eerie shadows into the alley. I tried to open my left eye, but the liquid that had leaked from it when the cat slashed at it had dried and crusted it shut. It was still painful, and I started to cry again, and hot tears slowly trickled out of the torn holes in my eyelid, igniting a blazing sting. I reached up a hand and examined it with my good right eye: the blood was dry and beginning to scab over; the raw flesh dry and stinging. I looked around for Tony, but all I saw were a charred burlap sack and a discarded metal flask lying near me. I tried to call out to him, but the vibrations of my vocal chords traveled straight to my left eye, wracking it with even more pain. I was too tired to panic or even consider the situation. My salty tears soaked into the scratches on my face and dripped into my burned palms, making them hurt so badly I nearly blacked out again.

I lay there, feet from my apartment building, too weak to move. I kept wondering _where_ Tony was, and if he would be mad that I had missed our meeting. I wondered if I had passed his test; no, I probably hadn't. I'd tossed the match onto the cat-bag, but then I had tried to save it. Did that make me soft? I glanced down at my burned hands and couldn't imagine _anybody_ looking at them and calling me a pansy.

_But what about Tony?_

He was the only friend I had. The club was the only thing I had. And with my head swimming in dizzying pain and slowly beginning to black out again, I knew that Tony had all the power he said he had: he really _could_ make potential members do anything he wanted.

* * *

A few days later, my palms were wrapped in yellowing bandages and my eye was heavily padded with cloths. I wouldn't be able to see out of that eye anymore, and the doctor was hinting at stitching the scarring remains of my eye lid shut. Tony hadn't come around our apartment in those few days, but I hadn't mentioned that he had had anything to do with the incident. When my father had finally found me, cold and still lying on the pavement, I had said that a cat had just jumped up and attacked me for no reason. I hadn't been able to come up with anything to say for my burned hands, but nobody asked. They just cleaned my hands and wrapped them with strips of Papa's old shirts and kept cold, wet cloths on my eye until the morning, when Mama called the doctor. He'd asked me to explain what happened, but all I could manage was, "I stepped on a cat." I couldn't imagine getting Tony in trouble for my own stupidity.

It was late in the evening as I lay on my late-grandfather's bed, my face buried in his scratchy pillow and inhaling the stale scent of cigar smoke and dust. I thought I could smell some of the ointment my grandfather had used to soften the skin on his face, but I wasn't sure. I gingerly rubbed my face against the pillow anyway, thinking that if there were any traces of that ointment left, even after these few years, maybe it would soften my scratches. I set my grandfather's pocket watch next to my head on the pillow, relaxed by its sharp, predictable tick and familiar presence.

I jumped as the door opened and Tony strode casually into the room. I had no anger for him; all I felt was relief that I still had my friend. He let out an easy sigh and said, "We ain't had a meeting for a while."

I sat up eagerly and gently shook my head, "Nope."

He shook his head at me as he took his usual seat at the desk. "Look at you, you're a mess."

Shrugging, I answered, "Yeah, the cat got me pretty good." I lightly touched my padded eye with a bandaged hand, "They said I'm gonna wear an eye patch."

"No kidding?"

"Nope," I said, pretending like I was proud. Maybe Tony would think of it as a war medal or something.

"Won't that look a little funny?" he asked.

"Papa says that it'll look like I'm blinking all the time."

"Blink, huh? That's nice. Listen," Tony shifted uncomfortably and looked down that the floor, rubbing his fingers together, "about that whole thing…"

I sat a little straighter as my ears perked up. Was Tony going to apologize? I started to feel a little giddy inside as I watch him fumble for words. I suddenly imagined him admitting that he was wrong and succumbing to _me…_

"That… that was a real dumbass thing of you to do," Tony finished, and I felt my excitement extinguish with his cold glare. "What in the hell made you do something like that?"

Part of me wanted to cry again. I rubbed my wrapped hands against the bed sheets as I murmured, "I dunno."

"'Cause you could've gotten us in a whole lot of trouble, and I'd have to stick up for you, like always. You're always doing stupid stuff like that, you know? Overreacting. You gotta cut that shit out."

Now _I _felt like I should apologize. Tony _did_ stick up for me a lot, because sometimes the other kids around the city would pick on me. But I never asked him to do it, he just did it; he lived on the streets of Manhattan and knew how to handle a fight. I didn't.

Tony continued, "And now look at you. Damn near blind and your hands are all torn up. For what, Louis?"

I was surprised that he used my name to me directly. I looked up and said, "Well, the cat's okay. A little burned, but he's okay."

"Great. Really great. Now you're gonna look like a freak for the rest of your life, but it's okay as long as the cat's okay, is that right? Who's gonna talk to a kid with an eye-patch, huh? Nobody, that's who."

"You're still gonna talk to me," I offered nervously, rubbing at the itchy scabs on my hands.

"Yeah? I don't know so much about that, Louis. Remember when that cat dug out your eye?"

As if I could've forgotten. I nodded meekly, "Yeah."

"Well, I ran to get help," Tony said calmly.

"No," I interrupted, "you didn't. Right before I blacked out, I could see your shoe with my other eye."

"Oh," he looked taken aback for a moment, and then relaxed his shoulders, "I went for help _after_ you blacked out. I wasn't sure how bad the situation was yet."

"How come I was still on the ground when I woke up?" I could feel panic rising in my throat again. Why was Tony lying? He'd told me things before that I'd known weren't true, but I usually let them slide because if I thought hard enough about them, they made sense. Tony's blatant lying and inability to meet my eyes unnerved me.

"Fine," he sighed irritably, pushing his short fingers through his hair. "Well, I _did_ stomp the bag out. And I _did_ try and find somebody. But think about it, Blink," he smiled at the new nickname, "wasn't it better that nobody found you except for your father?"

I just shrugged again, knowing that Tony was far more cunning than I was and was probably going to convince me again that he had done the right thing. "I don't know."

"Yeah. I mean… Blink, if some other poor bastard had found you, then it'd be all over the city about how your dumb ass jumped on a fire to save a stupid cat. And then you'd have to walk down the street and have everybody point at you and go, 'That's the _soft_ kid who set himself on fire- word has it he's crazy,' his voice sped up, "and then you'd be picked on even _more_. And what if I was at Sheepshead or something and couldn't help you out? You'd be dead. Think about it. I did you a favor."

I was close to crying again. I pushed my grandfather's pocket watch off of the pillow and into my lap, comforted by its familiar ticking. I asked, "Do you think they would've been able to save my eye if somebody had gotten there sooner?"

"No," Tony said firmly, looking at the ground once more. "They probably would've ripped it out. You're real lucky you have somebody like me."

I looked down at the pocket watch in my lap, defeated.

"Next order of business," Tony said officially, straightening his small shoulders, "how are we going to _keep_ this whole event quiet?"

"What?"

"I mean, you know the newsies. Sometimes we can't help but tell stories. What if I accidentally speak up?"

Alarm flushed my cheeks, and all I could think about was the snickering and pointing townspeople, saying how _soft_ I was that I jumped on a fire to save a cat. "Please, Tony," I begged, "_please_ don't tell anyone."

"I don't know, Blink. I've offered you my friendship to keep this quiet. What are you gonna give me?"

I thought for a moment that I could return my friendship, but then I knew that Tony would just laugh at me and ask what the hell he was supposed to do with that. Knowing that I had to keep Tony from saying anything, I quietly offered, "What do you want?"

He pretended to think carefully, and then pointed at my lap. "I think the watch will be okay."

I clasped the pocket watch between my two bandaged palms, muffling the ticking. "What? No. It's mine. I can't give it to you."

"Well, then," Tony stood up and pushed the desk chair in, giving me a sad smile, "at least I got a good story to tell the boys back at the house."

I asked timidly, "Are there a lot of boys?"

"Oh," he said airily, "_tons_. And they'll tell their _friends_, who will tell their_ friends_, 'till there won't be any place you can go where people won't pick on you."

I felt nauseated again and the cloth over my left eye grew slightly damper as tears soaked into it and down the right side of my face. I was dizzy at the thought of so many people I didn't know laughing at my story, or, knowing Tony, the _overly-embellished_ version of my story. I whispered weakly, "But… my grandfather said that it was for _me_."

"Sorry, kid. Sorry, _Blink_," he smirked at the last word and turned towards the door.

"Wait," I said slowly, "okay. I guess you can hold it for a little while. Just don't tell anyone, okay?"

A horrible grin spread over Tony's face as he quickly reached down and plucked the pocket watch from between my palms, "Sure thing."

I watched him close his unburned hands around the doorknob and asked him, "So… I'm still in the club, right?"

Tony snorted, "Yeah, Blink, you're in." Then, he looked down at the pocket watch in his fingers, and I thought of how the watch always made me feel so mature and made him feel so powerful. Tony listened to the watch tick off two seconds before saying, "This is exactly what I was looking for."


End file.
